Much is known about how having a teenage mother influences children's outcomes, but the relationship between teenage fatherhood and children's health and development is less well documented. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the authors investigated how teenage fathers matter for children. They expected teenage fathers'…

The present study examined the influence of schooling during children's first and second years of preschool for children who experienced different amounts of preschool (i.e., one or two years), but who were essentially the same chronological age. Children (n=76) were tested in the fall and spring of the school year using measures of…

The regulation of affective arousal is a critical aspect of children's social and cognitive development. However, few studies have examined the brain mechanisms involved in the development of this aspect of "hot" executive functioning. This process has been conceptualized as involving prefrontal control of the amygdala. Here, using functional…

Young children's ability to tell a strategic lie by making it consistent with the physical evidence of their transgression was investigated along with the sociocognitive correlates of such lie-telling behaviors. In Experiment 1, 247 Chinese children between 3 and 5 years of age (126 boys) were left alone in a room and asked not to lift a cup to…

Self-regulation represents a core aspect of human functioning that influences positive development across the life span. This chapter focuses on the action-control model, a key facet of self-regulation during childhood and early adolescence. The authors discuss the development of action-control beliefs, paying particular attention to their…

Psychological need theories offer much explanatory potential for behavioral scientists, but there is considerable disagreement and confusion about what needs are and how they work. A 2-process model of psychological needs is outlined, viewing needs as evolved functional systems that provide both (a) innate psychosocial motives that tend to impel…

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C) is a 27-item youth-report measure of positive affectivity and negative affectivity. Using 2 large school-age youth samples (clinic-referred sample: N = 662; school-based sample: N = 911), in the present study, we thoroughly examined the structure of the PANAS-C NA and PA scales and…

Studies of education and childhood studies in general tend to focus on the experiences and cultures of toddlers and school-age children. The experiences and cultures of babies and infants are often excluded from the scope of the studies of children. In Gilles Deleuze's (and Felix Guattari's) thinking, a child, and especially a baby or an infant,…

Most of what is known about the effectiveness of child welfare is found in studies of specific programs. Little is known about the effectiveness of the routine services provided in child protection systems. Family and Children's Services of Renfrew County is a Canadian child welfare agency that decided to expand its mission beyond protecting…

This paper discusses issues relevant to gifted children's readiness for school. It raises a number of questions that challenge thinking about what is meant by school readiness. Gifted children can often be ready for school entrance before the age traditionally considered appropriate. Their complex developmental profiles challenge accepted notions…

This longitudinal and naturalistic study aims to describe basic aspects of early imitative exchanges in dyadic infant-grandfather and infant-grandmother free interactions, from the second to the 10th month of age. Sixteen infants were video-recorded at home in the course of spontaneous dyadic interactions with maternal grandfathers and…

We examined developmental changes in children's inductive inferences about biological concepts as a function of knowledge of properties and concepts. Specifically, 4- to 5-year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds were taught either familiar or unfamiliar internal, external, or functional properties about known and unknown target animals. Children were…

Despite hundreds of studies describing infants' visual exploration of experimental stimuli, researchers know little about where infants look during everyday interactions. The current study describes the first method for studying visual behavior during natural interactions in mobile infants. Six 14-month-old infants wore a head-mounted eye-tracker…

This study investigated preschoolers' living kinds conceptualization by employing an extensive stimulus set and alternate indices of understanding. Thirty-four 3- to 5-year-olds and 36 adult undergraduates completed 3 testing phases involving 4 object classes: plants, animals, mobile, and immobile artifacts. The phases involved inquiries…

Temperament dimensions influence children's approach to and participation in social interactive experiences which reflect and impact children's social understandings. Therefore, temperament differences might substantially impact theory-of-mind development in early childhood. Using longitudinal data, we report that certain early temperament…